33 Responses

For the past two months, the readers of the FUSSYlittleBLOG have been working on compiling a list of all the best places to eat, drink and shop for food in the Capital Region, with the Times Union poll in mind.

Our goal is to rally around a slate of excellent businesses. Sure, we may disagree about which sandwich shop is the best or what Italian restaurant reigns supreme. But we all agree that its not Subway or The Olive Garden.

Since the better smaller places have a more fragmented fan base than the national chains, they are more often than not absent in the poll’s results. However, I’m thrilled (make that capital-T Thrilled), that this year the ballot is focused more on single locations to try and level the playing field.

Regardless, tomorrow I’ll have the FUSSYlittleBALLOT 3.0 available for your review. Hopefully you will consider joining us in the campaign for this reader generated list of the best of the Capital Region.

This whole Best Of thing has become a joke. Can’t the Times Union see that? But of course they hope the Olive Garden will rejoice in their title of Best Italian Restaurant and spend some of their gargantuan advertising budget with the TU.

Allow me to offer some constructive criticism: the problem, Daniel B., is with the name of your blog/ballot. Just change the name and I guarantee you’ll get more people to join. I really like the spirit of what you’re trying to do with your “campaign”, but the label you’ve given it is pretty awful. As a grown man, I just can’t bring myself to be associated with a “fussy little” anything.

@Cap’n Nemo – The TU is trying. Seriously. I made some concrete and actionable suggestions for how to fairly improve the results of the poll by making modest changes to the questionnaire, and they enacted the most important one: focusing on individual locations.

This should actually hobble the larger chains with their hefty ad budgets, or at least put them on a more even footing with smaller, independent businesses.

I cannot see them making this shift if they were truly interested in pandering to large advertisers.

If you want to see places like Olive Garden removed from the results and truly great local businesses thrusted into the top three, I suggest you join me in arms and adopt the FUSSYlittleBALLOT. Seriously, we only need a few thousand people to vote the full slate to make a meaningful difference in the outcomes.

So tell your friends, relatives and colleagues. Get them in on the action as well, and let’s take this thing back for the food lovers of the Capital Region.

Yes, let’s all argue about which resturant produces the best pre-poop in the area, cause no matter how much you spend on it folks, and no matter what it tastes like, everything you eat is only a few minutes from being poop.

But by all means, please continue arguing about trivalities…

And for a article about a an experienced food critic and her opinion of Olive Garden, read the following article (Barnes would never share it with you so I will)

I understand where you’re coming from Daniel b, and that may solve THAT problem with the polling, but it still is a joke. Case in point, I believe there’s a category for dry cleaners. Now, there aren’t any national chains in dry cleaning that I’m aware of, so this should be a good category for local businesses, right? Of course I’d vote for the dry cleaner I use. I think They do a good job and are reasonably priced. Are they the BEST in the capital district? Well, how the heck would I know? And that’s my point. I only use one dry cleaner because they’re close to my house. And I really don’t have enough anecdotal experience to even hazard a guess as to what makes the “best” dry cleaner in a region with over 800,000 inhabitants. The results are bound to be nonsensical. Oh they’re the best because I go there.

And let’s take on one of the restaurant categories. On and off the local Maurice’s sandwich shops usually take one if the first three spots for best sandwich shop. That one makes no sense to me whatsoever. Their sandwiches aren’t bad but they are in no way representative of the best of even our local sandwich places. So even results for local businesses can’t be trusted.

I think I’m going to start AVOIDING places that say the’ve won the TU Best Of!

DanielB, I’d feel more inclined toward your ballot if you could find a way to allow other choices, not necessarily your own. Just as one example, given the existence of Yono’s I would never choose Kinnaree as the best “ndonesian/Thai/Vietnamese” place.

As it turns out, your ballot isn’t anywhere near my choices, even if both are devoid of chains.

The voting is just too arbitrary for any of this to make any sense. And no, Daniel B., I’m not going to vote for your choices, either. I don’t know you or your tastes well enough to know if they’re really the best or not, sorry. Why doesn’t the TU scrap this whole exercise? It’s an exercise in futility.

I think before you criticize Daniel and his choices you should know that he did ask for his readership to come up with their own choices and he defended the ones he picked with why he felt they were the best in the region. While I picked some of his choices I also chose my own. Businesses put a lot of emphasis on being the “best of” and I’d like to see it actually mean something.

WOW, There is some MISERABLE people here! You can
always count on some “regulars” to be ultra-negative. Some
people need to RE-F-ING-LAX. It’s just food, and
I love it but come on. You guys sounds like a bunch
of little snotty brats. If people like Olive Garden,
than so be it, if they don’t that’s okay too. I like
Olive Garden- for what it is. I also enjoy a meal at
Paolo Lombardi’s, 677, hotdog’s at Gus’s, and all
the joints in between. Everybody go to their happy
place. And Jango- How does your foot taste? Ahhh..
you’ll probably complain about that too but I’m sure
williepit loves it.

In all the years that I have been reading blogs and even going back to the days of chat rooms and messages boards … I have never seen anyone so thoroughly and severely slapped down and put in their place as Jango Davis was by Steve on this thread.

Steve – congratulations! He had it coming and you let him have it with both barrels.

Jango – in the world of TU Blogs … you are mortally wounded. Hence forth, we will always associate your moniker with your profoundly arrogant and erroneous post and the subsequent shredding you took from Steve for posting it. Just like the way people will always remember Anthony Weiner, Hugh Grant, Elliot Spitzer and trading of Babe Ruth to the Yankees … Jango Davis is now synonymous with stupid.

Congratulations son … you earned it!

I urge you to take a LONG hiatus from TU Blogs and come back with a new moniker and a more thoughtful and pensive approach to blog commenting.

Okay. I’ve got a lot to respond to here, so this is going to be a little long. And while some people have done a pretty good job representing what I’m trying to do, I’d rather you hear it direct from the source.

Steve K. – Phase One was my attempt at getting some of the problems that were baked into the questionnaire fixed. I was thrilled that my biggest gripe was addressed, and credit the success of the effort to all those who signed the open letter to the Times Union and the newspaper’s responsiveness to its readers.

Phase Two was an ongoing discussion with readers of the FLB about what it means to be the best [insert category here] in the Capital Region, and to find out everyone’s top three picks. This was an important step because ultimately I would be asking people to rally around one local business per category. The goal of collecting all this information was to identify places that most people could agree were AMONG the best (even if some didn’t personally believe the place to be The Absolute Best).

Phase Three is where we are now, with a full slate of food-based businesses for people to rally behind. These are not my personal picks. My personal picks would look different too. This entire effort involves trust and compromise. And it comes at a cost. The cost is not being able to vote one’s conscience. But it also has a much greater potential payout.

I’m amazed at how many people have never heard of great places like Ala Shanghai, Mr. Pio Pio, Caffe Vero, Mrs. London’s or Kinnaree. You all know these places. But most people of the region don’t know they exist. Getting restaurants like this to crack the top three, or maybe even reach the number one spot would be huge.

If you don’t quite see why that is, I can explain further in a separate response.

I totally understand why williepitt, Strick9 and others are reluctant to vote for the slate. It doesn’t represent their picks for what is best in the region. And I respect that. However, all of us have different preferences, and we split the vote. We’ve seen where that gets us. It gets results like we’ve had in the past, and people complaining about the results when they come out.

Maybe this year will be different based solely on the changes to the questionnaire. But maybe not. And frankly, I don’t want to take that chance. So I’m taking action, and I hope some of you will join me.

Presumably most of you would agree that the places on the FLB 3.0 are AMONG the best places in the region (maybe with the exception of Wolff’s Biergarten for Best sports bar – what can I say, my readers don’t know sports – it’s not exactly a big surprise).

Kinnaree just got a 4* food rating from the Times Union. Sure Yono’s is fancier, but Yono’s is also the only Indonesian restaurant of note. If you are looking for Indonesian food in the Capital Region, you will have no difficulty finding your way there. Have I mentioned that the category “Best Indonesian/Thai/Vietnamese Restaurant” is just absurd? The one great Indonesian restaurant in the region has been a pillar of the fine dining scene in Albany for years. Do we really need to vote for it again? Or can we finally show people that Albany is more than just a one South East Asian restaurant town? I’m voting for the latter.

I have a lot more thoughts on this, and I’ll be expanding on them later this week and the next on the blog. So for now let’s leave it at this which seems to answer all the questions and direct comments to me above, except one.

Apparently a commenter named Monky wrote, “As a grown man, I just can’t bring myself to be associated with a ‘fussy little’ anything.” And I’m going to let that just stand on its own.

Thank you all for your interest in this quixotic campaign. I’m glad to have the chance to get you on board.

Hey I was just trying to help you, Fussy Little Daniel. The name of your blog and ballot oozes with pomposity, and I just felt it my duty to inform you of the (presumably) incorrect association that this label would attach to you. Really, I couldn’t imagine an adult male with the degree of pretense necessary to publicly declare themselves “Fussy” – and then invite others to do the same – actually existed.

Daniel B – While I understand what you are trying to accomplish (at least I think I do) with your slate of recommendations I do not believe your efforts will have the effect you seek … nor should they.

People value their own opinions, and rightly so. If I think the best pizza comes from The Fountain and the best Italian market is Ragoneese, then that’s how I’m gonna vote.

You state in comment # that “The cost is not being able to vote one’s conscience”. I suspect that you may find that for many, particularly Table Hopping commenters, the price is WAY TOO HIGH !!

And encouraging people to vote in a way that does not reflect their true beliefs is … well … Un-American. People will and should, vote however they want to vote and let the chips fall where they may!!

HI,
I am a prof of political science and I find it very interesting that people are giving Daniel a hard time for trying to organize support for a particular ballot. I find it surprising because that is the way politics is run in the United States ( lots of articles on this and there more than one news paper or cable channel that is trying to do the same thing). There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with him but slamming him for trying to preach his agenda is unfair and really undemocratic as well.
Prof.